I realised something on my most recent watch of this sequel; it isn’t about Michael. Halloween: H20 is all about Laurie Strode, how she’s been struggling with her past trauma, and how she ultimately finds the courage to finish the job.
At roughly ninety minutes long it’s a lean film, with the focus on Laurie not leaving much time for slashing. Cerebral would be pushing it, but much like the original it’s not about the gore. Curtis does well to show just how damaged Laurie has become, and thankfully the kids aren’t too annoying.
Over the years I’ve become far more educated on the various Myer’s. I know a lot about the various masks, and I have a very clear idea on how I see Michael. His movement, his pace, his stature, I have a picture of “my Michael” in my head.
H20, which is one my favourite titles of any film, uses four masks! Starting with a mask based off his last appearance, before moving onto two drastically different looking masks, and none of them are right. We won’t go into detail on the CGI mask. How can recreating a mask be so difficult? I’d find it off-putting if it wasn’t so amusing.
Physically I’m quite “meh” about this Michael, though the one-handed lower down is impressive.
So Michael isn’t quite right, but Strode is dealt with well, second only to the 2018 version. There are some decent callbacks to the original, and it’s focused run time is welcome. Ignore that Resurrection completely undermines the finale and you’ve got yourself a decent Halloween film.
It may have been surpassed by the sequel (H40? H20+20?) but the only thing I can say is truly bad about this film is Josh Hartnett’s haircut, which is awful.
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